> The US empire hasn't been defeated but its specific invasions have been.

> a pyrrhic victory for whoever the US is attacking

That's what I'm trying to say.

I wouldn't say they lost. They failed their strategic objectives, but they're still out there, intact and combat capable.

Losing is what happened to Germany after both World Wars.

> Except for the capability to prevail in those conflicts.

Doubt. The US suffered around 60k deaths in Vietnam before it pulled out, yet it has proven a willingness to withstand at least 5x more losses than that. WWII cost the US around 300k deaths, its civil war cost around 200k deaths.

I think they just didn't want to commit more american lives to whatever objectives it is that they had. They definitely had and still have the capability to do so, but they chose not to.

> Not your fault, many people think this way post-WWII as they have come to see this conflict as a template for what “real” war looks like.

Yeah I certainly see it that way. I think saying the US got "defeated" by Vietnam drops some nuance.

WWII proves the US is perfectly willing to suffer at least 5x the casualties of Vietnam in order to achieve their objectives. They probably just didn't want to commit to that sort of cost and pulled out instead. Feels like a different failure mode compared to going all out and getting routed.

https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&...

"The estimated cost of the war in Vietnam during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations was $176 billion."

Adjusted for inflation, that is $1,192 billion in 2026 dollars.

"The longest war in American history had significant economic effects both domestically and internationally in terms of what was spent on the war and what expenses had to be cut."

https://www.thecollector.com/vietnam-war-economic-effects/

They have been preparing for 50 years yet lost all their leadership, nuclear facilities, ballistic missile manufacturing ecosystem and air defenses in minutes to days.

The US is not doing amazing in this war but no need to give the Iranians too much credit. The Iranians are expanding a lot of resources of their own as much as this war drags on.

It is still very early to say how a country will fare considering that it ran out of water and was on a verge of economic breakdown and revolt before fighting a prolonged war with economic blockade of its main export.

No. Both cases were wins. Saigon fell 2 years after US combat forces left for example.

In both cases, Washington chose to stop sustaining a local government that could not survive on its own.

Saigon fell on April 30, 1975, which was a little over two years after the last US combat troops left Vietnam on March 29, 1973. US did not lose Afghanistan on the battlefield. US military overthrew the Taliban government, dismantled al-Qaeda’s sanctuary, killed Osama bin Laden, and prevented another major foreign-directed terrorist attack from Afghan soil for nearly twenty years. American forces were not defeated or driven out; they left because elected political leaders decided the mission was no longer worth continuing.

In both cases, the threats were eliminated. Hanoi is now friendly to the US. Iraq is friendly to the US. Syria is friendly to the US.

The nation-building project ultimately failed. That is not the same as achieving nothing, nor is a political withdrawal the same thing as being militarily defeated.

Yeah, because the USA pulled out.

The USA apparently sees these little wars as investments or something. It's getting too expensive: cut losses and pull out the troops.

A real "USA loses" scenario involves the White House flying a foreign flag. A real defeat of the USA would probably shock americans to the core. Fully expect them to lash out with nuclear weapons if such a thing ever happens.

[flagged]

I remember when I was young all the boat refugees from Vietnam. I could not understand why people said USA lost, but all the refugees were Vietnamese. If USA lost, whay were they not American?

Communist Hanoi and Taliban.

Who governs those countries matters, but America cannot spend unlimited blood and treasure ensuring that every country is governed by people we approve of.

The threats were eliminated. Mission accomplished.